By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

MONTEVALLO – Frank Rogers was hired to coach the still-forming Montevallo women’s lacrosse team in January of this year. Finally, on Sept. 8, the team practiced for the first time in the program’s existence.

“It was great,” an excited Rogers said during a Sept. 9 phone interview. “It was a real nice feeling. We have 21 girls on campus, we’re a really diverse group from 11 states and two provinces. We had a real enthusiastic practice and worked hard. I saw a lot of great things happening.”

Women’s lacrosse is not just new to Montevallo, it’s new to the Peach Belt Conference as well. The Falcons are one of two teams in the Conference to take on women’s lacrosse this year, along with Young Harris, and have joined with two Gulf South Conference teams, Shorter and the University of Alabama in Huntsville to create a four-team league in this first season.

Rogers said the challenges of creating a team from nothing have been about what he expected them to be. No more, no less.

“It (the difficulty) has been about what I thought it would be,” he said. “There are a couple of things playing to our benefit. The school itself for one. The facilities here and the academics have helped. Once they (players) got here and got a taste of the area and got to meet people, it made my job a lot easier.”

The team, which is composed of 18 freshmen and three upperclassmen, are still a long way from playing in a regular season game, with the first one scheduled for Feb. 5 against Birmingham -outhern. In the more immediate future, the Lady Falcons are participating in three scrimmage games on Sept. 26, one of which will be against Alabama.

Rogers expects his team to be competitive in its first season, saying he hopes to compete for a conference championship.

The team is hosting a Lacrosse 101 afternoon at the lacrosse field, adjacent to the track at the University of Montevallo, on Sept. 17 a 5 p.m. to help raise awareness for the team and the sport.